Calor
by Miss Faber
Summary: In which Katara leads protests, and Zuko's the guy who doesn't know how to take no for an answer. Featuring Thai food, macadamia nut cookies, ninja!Zutara, and a very convenient Spanish street guitarist. [ First entry for Zutara Week 2013. ]


_A/N: _Hooray for another Zutara week! This is my entry for the first day. It ended up being way longer than I planned- more than 3,000 words. But I hope you enjoy it, still!

_Prompt:_ Calor

_Warnings:_ warning for slight nsfw material meaning sexytimes, mention of fictional genocide, of mention of rape, slight language, and mention of violence.

* * *

_calor: [noun] Spanish for "heat"_

* * *

The flames licked at her feet.

"They'll burn us." It sounded like it came from worlds away, but it really came from just over her shoulder. "They're- they're gonna burn us, for what we did."

He sounded struck by wonder, surprised, as though it took being tied to the pyre to realize it. It almost made her laugh.

"I told you-" She stops, coughs. The smoke tastes like ash in her mouth. "I told you there might've been a chance."

When he speaks again, his voice was closer, clearer; emboldened by the truth of his words, or maybe it's normal to feel like that before you die, to take one sweet memory and lodge it into your final moments.

"Nothing is by chance."

She struggled to turn her neck. She couldn't.

"Katara." He sounded choked, then, at the end of his rope. She could almost hear him gritting his teeth in the pauses. "I wish…. I wish, at least, I could see you."

Tears sprung to her eyes. She reached, flexed her fingers until they cramped, but felt nothing against them except the harsh wood.

Zuko says something else, but she doesn't hear it, as the flames from the ground leap and she screams instead.

* * *

"It's a Spanish love song."

Katara turns her head, irritated at being interrupted mid-chant. "What?"

Behind her stands a pale boy in with messy black hair and clothes to match. He would have been unremarkable, a typical guy for this kind of setting, were it not for the scar.

He points. "_Calor_."

Katara follows his finger to the man lounging against the building, strumming on his guitar, his words drowned in the chaos that surrounds him.

She turns back to him, eyebrow raised. "Nice try. If you don't mind, I have a rally to get back to."

"What? You don't believe me?"

Katara fights not to roll her eyes. "I'm a little busy at the moment."

"I'm Zuko." He extends a hand, nonplussed by her dismissal. "You're Katara, right?"

"Yes," she grits through her teeth. She's accustomed to being approached by people who recognize her from her blog, articles, or videos, but this guy's a little insistent.

"It's nice to meet you," Zuko says. "You know- it is a Spanish love song. I wouldn't tell you so if I wasn't absolutely sure."

Suddenly, brilliantly, she remembers him. Her mouth opens on a silent gasp of surprise, and she's grateful that she's facing away from him.

"Nobody sings about love at a protest." Her voice is carefully schooled into neutrality, even. "That's the last thing on anybody's mind."

"That's an awfully pretentious comment," he says, casually sidling up to her so that they're shoulder to shoulder.

A stab of anger; Katara doesn't let it show. "Rallies aren't about love," she says.

"Aren't they?"

* * *

When Zuko is sent to the emergency room, he doesn't say that a waterbender shoved an icicle up his nose.

* * *

Katara meets him again sooner than she expected. She's crossing the street, large coffee in one hand and takeout Chinese in the other, when she stops and stares at the unmistakable profile on the sidewalk.

"Keep moving," he urges her when she freezes. "Few more steps, that's it. Cross the street."

She doesn't move.

"Come on, 'Tara. Is being hit by a car really preferable to my company?"

Suddenly, she's jolted into motion. Her brown paper bag hits him in the leg as she breezes by. "Possibly. And _don't_ call me 'Tara."

He falls into step with her, overbearing and entitled as always. Katara allows herself a wry smile.

"You know, they told me at the hospital that I could have died."

Katara snorts. "You know, that would have spared us all some misery."

"You know you didn't mean that."

"You know I did."

"You know you didn't."

Katara stops suddenly, causing Zuko to falter in his steps. "Stop following me. And stop crying about the little ice pick. You know that if you were a nonbender, they wouldn't have treated you."

Zuko steels his chin, and suddenly the mirth is gone from his eyes. "You won't get rid of me that easily."

Katara's shoulder sag, as though in defeat. "What do you want? Why are you suddenly _here_?"

Tactfully, he avoids her question with an accusation of his own. "Why'd you shove an icicle up my nose?"

Katara rolls her eyes. "You're lucky it was me that recognized you. If it was anyone else, they probably would have done much worse than that."

"I doubt it."

Katara says nothing. She isn't going to humor that statement with a response.

"You don't know anything about me, Katara. We met years ago and you made an assumption, and since then anything could have happened. Hell, look at what I've got on my face."

With a brutal shove, he indicates the distorted left side of his face. Katara looks away.

"You're just lucky it was me that recognized you," she says softly, starting to walk.

She hears his footsteps echo hers. "I said you wouldn't get rid of me that easily."

Katara sighs. "Fine. So what, some firebender got rough with you and so you started going to the rallies? It doesn't change what you are."

"You're as much a bender as I am," Zuko says. "If I'm a traitor, so are you."

Katara bristles. "Oh, really? _My_ father didn't-"

A commotion behind him startles Zuko into looking back. It's the guitarist, from the rally, lying in a pile of boxes he may have been precariously trying to balance himself on.

Zuko files this oddity away, and when he turns to speak to Katara, he finds her gone.

* * *

The next time he meets her, she's at a café, banging away at her laptop with an abnormally large cup of coffee resting beside it. She's so focused that she doesn't notice him sitting across from her until two whole minutes have passed, and only after another thirty minutes of not-so-friendly banter does she allow him to buy her a cookie to accompany the coffee.

"Macadamia." She looks up, eyes, bright, the cookie hovering by her lips. "How did… how could you _possibly_ remember?"

"It's only been seven years." Zuko shrugs, aiming for nonchalant, hoping to Agni his face isn't beet red.

Katara softens considerably after that. After nearly an hour of conversation, familiar but with the slight awkwardness of rediscovery, she returns to work. She doesn't object when Zuko doesn't move, pulling a book from his book pocket and thumbing it open.

They sit in silent companionship for hours, until Katara's stomach rumbles and Zuko covers up her embarrassment by suggesting an amazing Thai place downtown.

"There's no way you know a Thai place I don't know." Katara turns up her collar against the chill as they walk. "I have Republic City _memorized_."

"You don't know this one," Zuko says confidently. "Here."

He hands her his scarf, ruby red. Katara takes it after a moment of hesitation, and wraps it around her neck with trembling hands. It's warm.

Katara_ doesn't_ know the Thai place, and takes her hat off to Zuko for his resourcefulness and taste.

Midway through dinner, Zuko says, "You disappeared pretty quickly the other night."

Katara looks up from her soup, raises a brow while she swallows. "Weren't we just talking about theater?"

"You disappeared quickly," Zuko says again. "And before that, you shoved an icicle up my nose. Why?"

To his surprise, Katara laughs.

"What?" Zuko half-smiles, trying to follow her train of thought, ultimately confused. "What's so funny?"

"It's just… the way you said that. You're like… _politely inquiring_ why I attacked you with an icicle."

Zuko smiles weakly. "Yeah…"

Katara sobers. "Shut up, I'm funny."

"Hilarious."

Katara returns to her food, and it's a few minutes before Zuko comes to the conclusion that she doesn't mean to answer the question.

"If it's because of my father," Zuko ventures. "Then… I don't talk to him anymore. I haven't for years. And before that, I never supported him."

Katara looks up, seems to be measuring his words.

"You were at the rally," she finally says. "Was it your first time?"

"No," Zuko answers, immensely grateful to be finally gaining some ground with her.

"Do you come to them because of me?"

Zuko looks at her. She meets his gaze, eyes bright, and she looks surprised at her own daring.

Zuko lets his mouth quirk into a smile. "Maybe."

He returns his attention to his food, but not before noticing the blush on Katara's cheeks.

* * *

They meet often after that; for every meal of the day, it seems. This will often lead to them spending the entire day together, accompanying the other through any errands or tasks they have to complete. Katara accompanies Zuko on many research trips through the Republic City library and various bookstores and labs. Zuko takes Katara to the doctor when she gets the flu. It's an odd sort of arrangement, surprising to both of them, but they fall into it without question.

Katara never does return Zuko's scarf.

Months pass in this fashion. Katara takes notice of the fact that Zuko never takes off a bracelet she made for him, more as a joke than anything else; six beads strung together that read S-P-A-R-K-Y. She takes notice of the fact that their schedules become almost flawlessly synchronized. She takes notice of the fact that Zuko's eyes are a devastating, molten amber. She takes notice of the fact that Zuko's all lines, all planes and angles, from the sharp features of his face to the jut of his hipbones. She takes notice of the fact that she has a toothbrush in his apartment, due to nights spent drinking and then crashing at Zuko's place, and orders herself not to freak out.

More than anything else, they talk politics.

"Do you think it's fair?" Katara is ranting as they walk down the street, heading for an ancient noodle house Zuko swears is amazing. "Just because Amon wanted to get rid of benders, and they succeeded against him, do you think it's fair to turn it around completely and want to get rid of non-benders? I mean, how does that make us any better than him?"

"I don't think it's that at all," Zuko argues. "I think it's the threat of technology. I mean, even ages ago nonbenders could defend themselves and even attack benders with their weaponry- and I'm talking swords, fans, bows and arrows. With today's technology, with all that power, they could wipe us out of existence. _That's_ what they're scared of."

"But it's an act of the same_ magnitude_," Katara insists. "The last act that held this much potential for genocide was, well, Amon. _Hundreds_ of years have passed since then. You'd think society would have progressed at least a_ little_, right?"

"You'd think," Zuko agrees, shaking his head.

"And rallies do little change, I hate to admit it."

"You know how to really stop them, right?"

Katara finds Zuko's eyes, finds one meaning within them. She feels something slick slip down her spine.

"It's impossible," Katara dismisses. "They keep the place too well guarded. There's no way we can get to him."

Zuko looks at her shrewdly. "You never even considered it?"

"When I was younger," Katara admits.

"What do you _mean_, younger? You're twenty four!"

Katara laughs. "If they caught someone attempting that, they'd burn them at the stake. No other punishment would be… fitting."

"Yeah," Zuko says thoughtfully. "You're right."

"Till then, the state of things is terrible," Katara says. "You know, my brother is a nonbender. He has basically no rights. Nobody wants to hire him, he can't travel… he can't do anything. And he faces so much ostracism from people in the streets. Even if we eventually manage to change legislatures, it'll take years before we can change people's mentalities."

When Zuko doesn't say anything, Katara hits him on his arm. "What? What are you thinking?"

"Just that I've never heard about this," he says. "I didn't even know you had a brother. He's not mentioned on… your website or anything."

Katara shrugs. "It's not something I like to talk about on there. It's personal."

"Hmm," Zuko says, but nothing more.

Katara searches his face for an explanation for the sudden silence- but he's looking at her funny, like she did something _wrong_, and it makes her skin prickle. She redirects his attention.

"What about you?" she asks. "Is there something or someone that makes you want to fight for nonbenders?"

"My best friend," he says. "Mai."

Katara blinks, surprised and… not jealous, no. "I didn't know you had a best friend. I mean, we've been spending every day together and you never mentioned her."

"I didn't know you had a brother," he retorts, a hint of venom in his voice. "Sorry. I'm sorry, it's… yeah, she's a nonbender."

Katara brushes aside his abrupt tone. "Is she facing unemployment too?"

"No," Zuko says, and his voice is suddenly quiet. "She was raped."

Katara stifles her gasp with her hands.

"She and her best friend." Now that he's started, the words seem to gush from Zuko. "They both know how to defend themselves well enough, they've been learning martial arts since we were children, and normally nobody could get the best of Mai but there were a _lot _of them and… fuck-"

"It's okay." Katara reaches for his shoulders, draws him against her. "It's okay, you don't have to talk about it… I'm sorry. Spirits, I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault." She feels him mumble against her hair and squeezes him tighter, until she feels him move away and Katara quickly steps back.

"I try my best to fight against it," Katara says as they resume their walk, a helpless attempt to comfort him. "Sometimes I wonder if it's enough."

She stares at her feet, fixatedly. She doesn't know why, but she's suddenly fighting the urge to cry.

When she looks up again, semi-composed, she finds Zuko staring at her intently.

"Don't wonder," Zuko says, simply. "It's enough. You're a warrior."

A single note stabs the air, the otherwise silent street.

"What the…"

"Hey. It's that guy." Katara points. "It's the guy from the rally. Months ago."

"The Spanish singer who brought us together." Zuko says it with a chuckle, but it ignites something in the cavity behind Katara's ribs. "You know I've seen him like, five times since then?"

"What?"

"I think he's stalking me," Zuko says, looking very serious.

Their banter is interrupted by a third voice as the man begins to sing. Katara and Zuko quiet as they listen to the mellow drone of the song. The man's voice is low, but strong, like something simmering over heat.

Katara nudges Zuko, but does not let her gaze stray from the singer. "What's he singing about?" For some reason, she's whispering.

"Heat," Zuko replies, whispering too. "That's what calor means."

Katara's brow furrows. "Heat?"

"Love," Zuko elaborates. "Passion."

Katara looks up at Zuko and finds his cheeks stained red.

Somehow, inexplicably, the next line of the droning song finds them moving to face each other, closing the space between them with unsure steps.

"You know…" Katara swallows thickly, dares to look up at him through her lashes. "I don't have a lot of friends. I don't have a ton of… time."

"Is that what we are?" Zuko is drawing closer, closer, his breath ghosting over her face. "Friends?"

Katara closes her eyes to bask in it, in his _voice_, when she feels a gentle tug on her chin-

- and then his lips are on hers, tasting, gentle, once twice three times, and then he's licking into her mouth and she's yielding, and the singer's voice reaches a lovely crescendo, and it's all liquid heat.

* * *

"Heat," Katara murmurs, a breath against his neck.

"What?"

"Heat," she repeats, clearer. "Body heat. This."

Katara moves her hand to his face, fingertips tracing the line of his jaw. "This… _this _is why I do it."

Zuko blinks, still drowsy. "I don't understand."

"We all have body heat." Zuko looks down, finds Katara's head tilted up, the moonlight casting her features into focus. "It's not about being pro-nonbenders. It's about being pro-human."

Zuko trembles as her hand trails across his neck, feather light, and stop at his heart.

* * *

Nearly a year later, after many half-serious, half-hopeful, but entirely hopeless conversations, after increasingly violent rallies and increasingly deaf councilmen, after Sokka is beat up to an inch of his life for daring to enter a bar with the wrong crowd waiting inside, they decide to do it.

"Katara." Before the iron-wrought gates, Zuko pulls the edge of his mask down, a black cloth that covers his nose and mouth. "I know we planned this for months, and I know that we're doing this for the both of us, but you don't have to come."

"We look like ninjas," Katara says, sounding delighted with the fact.

"_Katara_."

"No," she replies, curt, all mirth gone from her voice. "No way. You won't leave me behind."

Zuko reaches between them, in the darkness, and finds her hand. "Never. I just don't want you to get hurt if… something goes wrong."

"_If _something goes wrong, get behind me."

Zuko grins, his hand moving to cup her face, memorizing her features by touch. "I love you."

She moves so that her lips press a kiss to his palm. "I love you, too, Sparky."

On a shaky exhale, Zuko moves his mask back into place. "Stay with me," he says, as he eyes the enormous building they were about to infiltrate. "I'll protect you."

* * *

They're caught.

* * *

The flames lick at his feet. "Nothing is by chance."

She doesn't answer. A stab of panic shoots through him, causes his hands to clench into fists against the wood.

"Katara."

Still, no answer.

"I wish…" He wishes he was a better man, a stronger man, a wiser man; a man who could have shielded Katara from this, from this most painful end.

He settles on something base, something that brings a shuddery sob to his throat. "I wish, at least, I could see you."

She says nothing. Zuko closes his eyes, hopes she can hear him still.

"Remember that we _won_, Katara," he pleads. "We killed him. We built a better world for everyone we know, and… Spirits, Agni Katara, I love you-"

Her screams cut him off, fill his ears, curl his toes. For a second he's shell-shocked; then it's like he was struck by lightning-

"_NO_! No, _no_, Katara, _fuck you_, _fuck you you bastards_, don't hurt her, stop it, _I will kill you-_"

-flailing against the wooden pole, his fists clenching and unclenching, every muscle in his body straining against his binds.

Then he can't scream his protests anymore, can't thrash against the wood. He's thrown back against the pole, his head tossed back and his teeth gritted, as the flames begin to lick up his calves; a slow, exquisite torture.

Just as it feels like it's over, a commotion reaches his ears. A commotion beyond the fire, beyond the heat. A familiar voice reaches his ears.

The fire stops.

Katara's ragged breath, a miracle in its own, confirms his suspicion. "Sokka. Toph."

Wearily, Zuko barks out a laugh. Perhaps they'll get another chance, after all.

* * *

[ A/N: In case this wasn't obvious, this was set in a modern-AU-type-verse with bending. Meaning it took place in the Avatar verse, but hundreds of years from Amon's time, meaning that modern allusions like Thai food and computers would typically exist. ]

Please review!


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